Chapter 73. The Agent of Fate and Time...
The woman who stepped down from the carriage had her long hair evenly parted in two and draped over her shoulders. She had delicate features, but her dark eyes were so calm that they seemed to see through all the illusions of the world.
She sat in an ordinary wooden wheelchair, carved with many inscriptions, her hands folded on her thighs. Her gaze passed over the line of manor staff and landed on Lin Xiaoxiao, who was being supported by Xiao Weizhi at the very end, clutching her head.
Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
A calm, gentle voice, devoid of any tremor, seemed to transcend the boundaries of reality and time, appearing directly in Lin Xiaoxiao's mind: "It's a pleasure to see you again, Xiaoxiao. I am the agent of the Goddess of Fate, my name is Kagome."
The sound interrupted the buzzing in Lin Xiaoxiao's mind, allowing her to catch her breath.
Seeing her again? Did they know each other? Or had they met before?
Lin Xiaoxiao leaned against Xiao Weizhi's chest, supported by him. Her forehead was covered in cold sweat, and she was breathing heavily. She looked up and stared at Ge Wei, who was more than ten meters away: "It's nice to see you. Were all those people and things arranged by you?"
She had too many questions in her mind that needed to be answered, and she couldn't wait to find a quiet place to ask them.
Kagome's lips curled into an almost imperceptible smile. The calmness in her eyes faded, replaced by a playful expression. She stared intently, as if trying to memorize Lin Xiaoxiao's disheveled state, this rare and unseen scene.
Having had her fill of Kagome, she gestured for the servants behind her to push her wheelchair, and her voice once again appeared directly in Lin Xiaoxiao's mind: "This is not a suitable place to talk. Let's go inside and discuss this in detail."
Lin Xiaoxiao then noticed that the servant pushing Kagome's wheelchair behind her was expressionless and stiff, looking more like a puppet than a real person.
A dozen minutes later, they appeared inside the manor, in a study that resembled a small library, filled with the distinctive scent of ink from books.
After Kagome was pushed into the study, she snapped her fingers, and the figure of the servant pushing the wheelchair instantly vanished, turning into a pile of silver specks of light that disappeared from the spot.
In the center of the study was a small round table that had already been set with tea set and snacks. Kagome snapped her fingers again, and the wheelchair stopped in the empty space in front of the small round table.
She gestured to Lin Xiaoxiao and Xiao Weizhi, who were standing at the door, "Come and sit down."
Lin Xiaoxiao and Xiao Weizhi exchanged a glance, then stepped inside and sat down on the sofa.
When Lin Xiaoxiao took a closer look at the tea snacks, she was surprised to find that most of them were the kinds of tea snacks that Lin Xiaoxiao liked to eat.
She was a little puzzled. Was it a coincidence?
Kagome picked up a cup of tea and slowly brought it to her lips. As she drank, her voice inexplicably came from inside the study: "Xiaoxiao, I know you have many questions, but now is not the time to reveal them. We still need to wait for someone. Let's enjoy this quiet afternoon tea now."
Lin Xiaoxiao looked at Ge Wei with anxiety. Who else was she waiting for? Why couldn't she say it now?
The rest of the afternoon tea was spent chatting about trivial matters.
It was during this period of casual conversation that Lin Xiaoxiao learned that the price Kagome paid for becoming an agent was losing her tongue and a section of her spine in exchange for gaining the ability to see through fate.
The person they were waiting for was the agent of the Goddess of Time, a woman named Xingyan.
Most of the time, Ge Wei would ask questions and Lin Xiaoxiao would answer, chatting about trivial things in the capital.
Unfortunately, Kagome wasn't a talkative person, and the tea party ended after a short while.
Afterwards, Lin Xiaoxiao and Xiao Weizhi left, leaving Ge Wei sitting in the study deep in thought.
Back in her room where she had been staying for the past few days, Lin Xiaoxiao could no longer contain her anxiety.
She paced back and forth in the room, biting her thumbnail, pondering what Kagome wanted to do and what her purpose was.
Seeing her pacing back and forth, Xiao Weizhi followed her every move. After a while, his eyes started to sting, so he stopped her, pulled her into his arms, and whispered to comfort her, "Don't rush, let's wait and see. It seems that this manor owner doesn't have any bad intentions for now."
Lin Xiaoxiao buried her face in his chest and nodded silently.
But he didn't have bad intentions, did he?
Time quickly passed into the dead of night, when the moon reached its highest point.
A monster with a pair of large wings, a body shaped like a lion, and a height of over 4 meters, leaped down from the thick clouds in the sky and gently landed on the ground, raising a cloud of dust.
A woman with her eyes blindfolded by a ribbon, dressed in a shimmering robe, dismounted from the beast under the watchful gaze of the starry sky and slowly stepped into the manor, skillfully avoiding all obstacles before reaching the study.
After Xingyan entered the manor, the monster shrunk its size and squatted down next to the manor entrance, transforming into a stone statue guarding the gate.
This person is Xingyan, whom Lin Xiaoxiao and Ge Wei were waiting for. She is a woman who gained the power to control time in exchange for losing her eyes and left hand.
Inside the study, Lin Xiaoxiao and Ge Wei, who had been notified in advance, sat waiting. Xiao Weizhi, however, had not received an invitation and could only wait in the room.
The woman, whose eyes were blindfolded with a ribbon, pushed open the door and entered. She sat directly in the empty space between Lin Xiaoxiao and Ge Wei, sprawled on the small sofa, and crossed her legs, twisting them into a pretzel shape.
She spoke in a languid tone, as if attending a girls' get-together: "Every time I come to this lousy place of yours, I want to complain about how I ever chose to settle in such a remote location?"
Kagome sneered: "Hmm, if you're not coming here, you're going to yours?"
Xingyan was speechless; she really couldn't go there. It had taken a lot of effort for her to escape this time, avoiding the eyes and ears of those people.
With the mindset that a good woman doesn't fight with another woman, Xingyan turned her head, rested her right hand on her cheek, and nodded as she 'looked' at Lin Xiaoxiao, clicking her tongue in comment: "I didn't expect you to be so innocent at this time. Cough, I thought that given your cautious nature, you would come to the City of Divine Favor in a few years. I didn't expect you to come so soon."
If I'm not mistaken, what this woman meant wasn't "pure," but "stupid," right?
Lin Xiaoxiao narrowed her eyes, a hint of barely suppressed anger in them, and gritted her teeth to force a reluctant smile.
She didn't know why seeing this blindfolded woman caused an inexplicable surge of anger within her; only one thought occupied her mind: to seal that broken mouth shut with needle and thread.
He noticed the faint anger rising in Lin Xiaoxiao's eyes.
Xingyan inwardly cried out that she had been careless, forgetting that this person was petty. She might tolerate him now because of his status and rank, but once she remembered, wouldn't she be in deep trouble?
Xingyan immediately straightened up from her slumped posture on the sofa and brought the topic back to the forefront with a serious expression: "Tell me, why did you enter the City of Divine Favor at this time? Didn't I ask Guo Duoan to remind you before?"
By now, those bastards in the north have probably already noticed Lin Xiaoxiao's presence, but they haven't found her hiding place yet.
Lin Xiaoxiao then briefly recounted her experience of howling in the A-level secret realm and explained the reason for entering the City of Divine Favor.
Xingyan picked up a cup of tea, took a sip, and nodded: "I didn't expect you and Liu Duoxin to hit it off so quickly."
Kagome nodded, surprised that they would face off at this moment.
Lin Xiaoxiao was somewhat surprised. It seemed that these two people knew Liu Duoxin as well as she did.
Xingyan placed her teacup on the ceramic coaster, the bottom of the cup making a crisp sound against the coaster. She turned to Kagome and said, "Since she's here now, let's not waste any more time and begin?"
Kagome nodded, her mouth still not moving: "Yes, this is fate's arrangement. Let's begin."
Lin Xiaoxiao frowned as she watched the two of them speaking in cryptic terms. What fate had arranged? What was the beginning?
Immediately afterwards, Kagome and Hoshino grabbed Lin Xiaoxiao's wrists from either side. A moment later, a silver light emanated from the three of them, and they disappeared into the study together.
A familiar feeling of dizziness passed.
Lin Xiaoxiao then realized that the three of them had moved from the study in the manor to a place filled with lava.
It was pitch black all around, with only the shimmering light of the magma below. This place was entirely illuminated by the magma below, and the air was clearly deformed and twisted due to the high temperature of the magma.
The three of them appeared on a small black rock platform in the lava. All they could see was bright red, constantly rippling lava. Every now and then, they could see large and small lava bubbles rising up and then bursting, as if the air was being scorched, making a hissing sound.
In just over ten seconds, Lin Xiaoxiao's clothes were completely soaked. Her breathing was erratic, and she asked in a disheveled state, "Why did we come here?"
Kagome and Hoshino didn't answer her. Instead, they pointed at the lava and said to Lin Xiaoxiao, "Come on, drip a drop of blood down there."
Blood? Or is it dripping into lava? What kind of bizarre ritual is this?
Before Lin Xiaoxiao could figure out why she had to drip blood into the lava.
Xingyan had already grabbed her right hand, cut a gash on her finger, and squeezed a drop of blood into the lava below through the wound.
When the blood droplet fell into the lava, a few seconds later, the spot where the blood droplet fell was like boiling water, boiling wildly. With each surge, the fiery red lava was covered with bright red liquid.
In just a few minutes, the entire lava pool had turned into a pool of scalding blood.
Lin Xiaoxiao struggled to pull her hand away from Xingyan's grasp, her face expressionless, her back teeth clenched tightly, her hands clenched into fists, trying to appear calm as she watched the unexpected turn of events unfold.
Xingyan scoffed, "Alright, stop pretending. You've never changed your stubborn, pretentious nature. Let's go."
After saying that, he reached out and pushed Lin Xiaoxiao into the scalding blood pool.
Lin Xiaoxiao fell into the blood pool before she could react.
She gritted her teeth, her muscles tense, and swam quickly in the blood pool, enduring the burning sensation. Just as her right hand climbed onto the edge of the small black rock platform, she turned around.
It felt like something grabbed her ankle, pulling her down and dragging her deeper.
Lin Xiaoxiao struggled frantically, trying to break free from the dragging sensation and climb onto the platform, but the foul-smelling blood turned into giant hands that grabbed her and dragged her down.
Before the scalding blood submerged her cheeks, Lin Xiaoxiao stared intently at the two women on the small platform before being dragged into the pool of blood.
One person stood on the platform, while the other sat in a wheelchair, watching indifferently as Lin Xiaoxiao was dragged into the pool.
Kagome tapped her fingers on the saddlebags of the wheelchair and asked helplessly via telepathy, "Why didn't we say anything? Isn't it a bit inappropriate to just leave her like this?"
Xingyan grinned mischievously: "Not good? I think it's great. Don't you think about how much trouble we've helped her with these past few days? When she remembers, she won't have the chance to play tricks on us."
Moreover, if this anger isn't resolved now, there will be no chance to do it again.
As Lin Xiaoxiao was being dragged rapidly to the bottom of the blood pool, she held her breath, clenched her teeth, and endured the burning sensation all over her body. The lower she went, the lower the temperature became.
When we reached the bottom of the pool, the surrounding temperature had returned to normal and was no longer scalding hot.
When she reached the limit of holding her breath, Lin Xiaoxiao instinctively took a few breaths. She didn't feel any water choking her mouth or nose; instead, her breathing was normal, as if she were on normal ground.
When Lin Xiaoxiao tentatively opened her eyes, she found herself floating in a bright, pale red space. This space was vast and had no end in sight.
Just as she was looking around, a semi-transparent coffin made of special crystal material, wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, appeared out of thin air in front of her, about two meters away.
Inside the coffin lay a corpse with severe burns all over its body, its skin red and wrinkled, with very little hair, a fist-sized hole in the heart, missing its right leg, and its entire left arm.
The corpse looked as if it had suffered inhuman torture before its death.
The moment Lin Xiaoxiao saw the corpse, her heart raced, her mind went blank again, and every cell in her body began to burn uncontrollably.
She clutched her head in pain, her whole body trembling uncontrollably.
Some fragmented memories inexplicably appeared in her mind:
The capital city was reduced to ruins, filled with severed limbs and broken pieces of human remains. Clinging to life, these survivors huddled among the debris, weeping and wailing softly.
Two indistinct figures were fighting; each collision created a massive explosion, seemingly shaking the heavens and earth.
{Many people sat in a conference room, frantically banging on the table; the atmosphere was tense…}
...
These fragmented pieces passed by one by one, eventually transforming into the terrifying corpse before them, standing in the center of the blood pool, turning its head to reveal a relieved smile to Lin Xiaoxiao.
Lin Xiaoxiao suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at the corpse in the crystal coffin.
Unexpectedly, the crystal coffin had already been opened, and the corpse had even slowly opened her eyes. She said in a voice like coarse sandpaper rubbing the ground, "You've come, you've come, hehehehe..."
That sound? It's the sound from my nightmares, the sound that appears from time to time...
At that moment, Lin Xiaoxiao remembered everything.
Her eyes widened in terror, and she instinctively tried to back away and escape, but her body was frozen in place and she couldn't move.
She watched helplessly as the corpse floated out of the crystal coffin and rushed straight towards her. She reached out her right arm and pulled her into her embrace, saying in a hoarse voice, "This time, we must succeed."
After saying that, the corpse turned into specks of blood-red light, all of which merged into Lin Xiaoxiao's body.
When all the red light merged into Lin Xiaoxiao's body, it felt as if her whole body was being frantically pressed down by a hydraulic press weighing ten thousand pounds. Veins bulged uncontrollably on her temples, as if they were going to crush her entire body and soul and reassemble her.
"ah!!!!"
"Ah!! Ahhh!!"
...
A hoarse scream echoed through the space, each one more piercing than the last.
In her hazy state of consciousness, Lin Xiaoxiao seemed to travel through time and space, seeing Kagome and Xingyan, as well as the corpse in the crystal coffin.
The scene they were in was very familiar; it was the black rock platform where Lin Xiaoxiao had fallen. However, instead of lava, there was a beautiful, azure energy pool, like a starry sky, with twinkling lights floating in the air.
Kagome sat slumped in her wheelchair, bleeding from all seven orifices, her eyes wide open, her head tilted to one side, and she was no longer alive.
The white blindfold over Xingyan's eyes was now soaked with blood, and there were traces of blood on her nose and the corners of her mouth. She looked extremely weak: "This decision is very risky. Are you sure?"
The woman, whose face was burned beyond recognition and whose heart was ripped out of her left chest, yet who could still walk normally, leaned on a cane and walked up to Kagome, reaching out to stroke her unseeing eyes.
The extremely calm voice said, "I'm sure. I can't change the current situation. I can only try to go back in time to see if I can change the outcome."
Xingyan coughed a few times, spitting out another mouthful of blood, then casually wiped it away: "How can you be so sure that the person you chose can help you change the outcome?"
The woman laughed heartily, her tone carefree and relaxed, yet with a desperate glint in her eye: "I don't know, but out of the thousand people Kagome helped speculate on, he's the only one with a 50/50 chance of winning or losing. I have to take a gamble."
Xingyan spat out another mouthful of blood, wiped it away, and sneered, "Aren't you afraid of losing the bet?"
The woman chuckled and shook her head: "I'm not afraid. Even if I lose the bet, I won't lose. I'll get to enjoy a few more years of easy life, which is a win."
Xingyan's windless clothes fluttered, his whole body radiating bursts of light. He quickly formed hand seals and laughed angrily, "How could I be best friends with a madman like you? I must have had the worst luck in eight lifetimes! Lin Xiaoxiao, did you hear that? Knowing you is the worst luck in eight lifetimes."
Lin Xiaoxiao laughed heartily: "Thank you for the high praise, Messenger of Time. I am truly honored, hahaha."
The moment the Milky Way appeared, it shone brightly, and the two people and the corpse present disappeared into the Milky Way, leaving only an old wheelchair in place.
Lin Xiaoxiao, in the alternate dimension beneath the blood pool, had not yet lost the pain on her face when she suddenly opened her eyes.
[Gain massive amounts of experience: Level +1, +1...]
[Divine Essence Forming: 1%, 2%...]
[Failed to condense divine power; please continue your efforts to collect it.]
I remember now, I remember everything.
She is Lin Xiaoxiao, who transmigrated into the book, and also Lin Xiaoxiao who was reborn and experienced the war between quasi-gods, losing her godhood.
After her defeat in the war of the gods, her divine essence was removed from her heart, turning her into a fallen demigod.
The entire Dragon Kingdom was offered as a sacrifice by Liu Duoxin to the 'God of Greed' behind her.
Of the billions of people, only tens of thousands survived. Even the powerful figures who had lived in the God-favored Capital for many years perished in the great battle, turning the entire Dragon Kingdom into a living hell.
The so-called plot constraints, deliberately blurred plot experiences (plots that will be forcibly forgotten unless encountered), those midnight nightmares, cowardice, stupidity, and dullness...
These are all constraints that her future self has placed on her present self, solely to avoid being noticed and to prevent those quasi-gods (agents) from discovering her existence...
Even Xiao Weizhi was her personally chosen destined partner, with the purpose of helping her avoid everyone's attention during the early development phase, and also serving as the embryo of the strongest humanoid weapon potential...
But Xiao Weizhi was innocent and should not have become a sacrifice in the war of gods without knowing the truth.
Lin Xiaoxiao pursed her lips, closed her eyes, and reached out to pull out a small pair of scissors that shimmered with seven-colored light from thin air.
Congratulations on obtaining: Unbinding Item (God-tier)
[Unbinding Item (God-tier): This item can separate two people whose lives are intertwined, restoring them to individual status...]
Three days later, Lin Xiaoxiao, who had reached level 230, floated up from the bottom of the pool.
Xingyan crouched down, leaned over to the expressionless Lin Xiaoxiao opposite him, and greeted her with a smile: "Remember now?"
Lin Xiaoxiao gave her a sweet smile and reached out to pull Xingyan down into the energy pool that had returned to its light blue color: "Hmm, I remember now, you pushed me into the pool."
Xingyan struggled to float to the surface using a doggy paddle, raised her head, and spat out a mouthful of water: "Do you have to be so petty?"
Lin Xiaoxiao had already climbed onto the small platform. While wringing the water off her clothes, she turned her head and said with a half-smile, "A madman acts entirely according to his whims; that's his true nature."
This was the evaluation that Xingyan gave her 'personally' back then.
Upon hearing this, Xingyan was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter and slapped the water's surface: "Hahaha, that's right, being a madman is your true nature."
Kagome sat to the side, shaking her head with a helpless smile.
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